


you fancy me mad

by bittereternity



Series: You Fancy Me [1]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Crack, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Pre-Established Relationship, attempts at humor, confused and frustrated!Will, devoted!Hannibal, will is just trying to understand
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-23
Updated: 2013-06-23
Packaged: 2017-12-15 20:11:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/853575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bittereternity/pseuds/bittereternity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"How am I supposed to introduce you to my family?" Will raises his voice. "What am I supposed to say? Hey everyone, this is my partner, Hannibal, and in his spare time, he likes to eat human organs. Make sure you stay on his good side or you might end up with a one-way ticket to our date-night dinners?"</p><p>"I would <i>never</i> eat your family, Will," Hannibal looks quite affronted at his outburst. "We need them to be present at our wedding, of course."</p><p>[Or, the one where Will finds out that Hannibal is a cannibal and everyone except him is surprisingly okay with it.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	you fancy me mad

*

Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land

Man got to tell himself he understand

\- Kurt Vonnegut,  _Cat's Cradle_

*

Later, he will think that the whole mess wouldn’t even have started if he hadn’t been so damn sentimental in the first place. He could have continued existing for a long time, blissfully ignorant of, well, _this._

As it is, however, one of Will’s greatest pitfalls is sentiment. It’s hard not to be sentimental, though, when your significant other for the past six months – and hah, take _that_  Jenny Rowlands in high school for calling him a commitaphobe – is the most thoughtful person he’s ever encountered. Hannibal has the annoying -- albeit endearing, Will has to admit -- tendency to take into account every _single_ little detail. He prepares coffee for Will just the way he likes it, brings him half-sprinkled doughnuts every Thursday afternoon because Will has an early class, always leaves a box of chocolates in clear vision in his refrigerator because Will goes through severe bouts of insomnia and having a sweet-tooth helps.

In the beginning, it used to scare the _fuck_ out of him after they had gotten together. He tried to compete with Hannibal for a while, tried to memorize the time when Hannibal took his afternoon tea, tried to figure out his favorite brand of detergent or the type of toothbrush he might prefer.

Except, Hannibal’s toothbrush is not from any main-brand pharmacy and costs sixty-seven dollars. Will doesn’t even bother to understand anymore; after all his teeth are perfectly clean and white without the extravagance.

Hannibal also never tired of cooking for him. Every meal they take together is perfectly presented with just the right amount of flavors and ingredients and it’s delicious, really, except sometimes Will is perfectly content to collapse with a bowl of cereal. Every time he brings it up, Hannibal smiles indulgently and pours him yet another glass of wine.

All of which amounts to Will feeling like an inconsiderate dick a lot of the time. Hannibal never complains, and Will is pretty sure that he doesn’t even _think_ about it, but most of the time, he is left in a state of pure _awe_ at the sheer amount of support Hannibal is willing to provide just for him. Which is why, he decides, he will go all-out to plan their six-month anniversary and give Hannibal a day catered to every single preference of his.

Two weeks before the D-day, he spends his lunch break holed up in his office, Googling for ideas and declining Jack’s invitation to go out for lunch.

A copious amount of searching around the words _perfect anniversary gift boyfriend_ and using various combinations of Boolean operators yields a slight throbbing in his temples, a suggestion of lingerie stores in his area that he promptly deletes and various websites claiming to help him make personalized items.

The last idea, he decides, isn’t the worst. He isn’t crass enough to think about getting Hannibal’s face on a mug or a t-shirt but there’s some merit into possibly constructing an sophisticated, artful memento of their time together.

He straightens in his chair and drinks the last of his coffee, determined to get a head-start on short-listing the best pictures of him and Hannibal together. Five seconds in, that turns to be a problem as he realizes that there simply _aren’t_ many pictures of them together. Sure, Beverly keeps tagging him in a few group photos on Facebook that he can crop, but they simply aren’t good enough. Every single picture has Hannibal looking remarkably composed and put together in his three-piece suit, even with a very inebriated Will slobbered over his shoulder.

Sighing, he opens another tab and types ‘hannibal lecter’ in the engine. There would be, he figures, at least a few pictures of him in conferences that might look more dignified after some Photoshopping.  

He’s right. There are 7,04,000 results generated for him in 0.21 seconds.

Then, Google asks him if he means _cannibal lecter_ instead.

*

Sometimes, Will wishes he were the kind of person who could just call it quits and go live on the beach somewhere. On days like these, the wish comes back, crawling all over his insides and screaming to be let out.

In his mind, he pictures lying on a beach under the sun, the warmth of the sand on his back, the wind blowing on his face and forcing him to close his eyes, the cool water tricking in between his toes and washing away the mud. On days like these, it’s glorious.

The thing is, it makes _sense_. There are a lot of oddities that make up the perfectly composed, suit-clad, nimble fingered Hannibal Lecter. For one thing, Will has never seen him actually _shop_ for anything meat-related, although they’ve been to the supermarket many times, mostly because Will insists on maintaining a healthy supply of cereal and alcohol at his place. He’s never allowed in the kitchen when Hannibal cooks, for another. Every time he’s asked, the meat has arrived from ‘private sources’ and are ‘fresh cuts’, which really, now that Will thinks about it, takes on a whole new meaning. And then there’s the alcohol. Hannibal insists on brewing his own beer because he has ‘relevant contacts’ and this is normally the point where he would be rushing to the bathroom to throw up, except that beer had tasted _so good_.

Probably because he used eyeballs instead of hops or something. Dear God.

He opens his eyes after a few minutes to Google still mocking him. He takes a deep breath and fumbles around for his phone before scrolling through his contacts and pressing ‘call’.

“You better have a really good reason for calling me in the last five minutes of my break,” Alana’s voice is the epitome of exasperation. Will pictures her sipping a can of Diet Coke on her desk while finishing off the last of her sandwich and watching reruns of _Judge Judy_ on Youtube. He makes a mental note to tell her to wipe off the crumbs off her face before going back to class.

“I have troubles you wouldn’t even understand,” he sighs dramatically.

Alana makes a noise that he pragmatically chooses to ignore.

“Okay, so hypothetically,” he chooses his words carefully, “what would you do if you found out that a friend of yours might be a little… weird?”

“I already _have_ a friend who is weird,” her reply is instantaneous. “He insists on disturbing my lunch hours.”

Will grits his teeth. “I don’t mean that kind of weird. I mean something _really_ off the charts.”

Alana sighs impatiently. At least, he thinks it is impatience. “Will, if this is about you being kinky in the bedroom, I swear—“

“No. no,” he’s quick to cut her off. “Look, let’s say you found that a friend of yours liked to eat things that we wouldn’t consider the norm. What would you do?”

Silence on the other end. And then, “You figured out Hannibal, huh?” Alana’s voice is a mix of fondness and sympathy directed towards him.

He almost drops the phone. “ _What_?”  he screeches in a shrill, unmanly display of shock and promptly clears his throat to regain some control over this conversation.

Alana seems to have recovered too. “I don’t know how you figured out Hannibal’s secret,” she says, “but I would suggest that you don’t freak out.”

Will splutters. Today has not been a good day for him so far and it’s not even one in the afternoon. “I just found out that my boyfriend eats other people and you’re telling me to _not_ freak out?”

Alana almost squeals. “Oh good,” she sighs happily, giving him a very disturbing mental picture of a ten year-old girl with braided hair. “You called him your boyfriend. Hannibal was worried about your tendency to run away from labels.”

“My tendency to what?” he asks, momentarily sidetracked before shaking his head. “Don’t try to distract me, Alana. How did you _know_?”

“Everyone knows,” her voice is matter-of-fact, like they’re discussing the fucking weather. “He’s even published a paper recently on the lifestyle changes and dietary implications of family-based cannibals.”

Will pinches himself, mainly to make sure that he’s awake. He’s disappointed when it hurts, lying in a chemically-induced coma with a morphine drip would be a more plausible and relevant explanation. “You mean there are _more_ of them? It’s not just an exclusive psychopathic thing?”

 Alana scoffs. “Of course they aren’t psychopaths, Will. They just have a… different idea about the type of food they want to consume.”

“Alana, you’re talking about eating _people_ ,” he feels the need to point out because she is clearly missing the whole _point_ of this conversation.

She makes a sad noise at the back of her throat. “I wouldn’t have pegged you for the judgmental type, Will,” she enunciates in a tone that screams disappointment. He grits his teeth and tries not to feel like a kid who’s just pulled the pretty girl’s pigtails. “I thought that you, of all people, would understand.”

He relents. “It’s just a _shock_ , okay,” he tries to pacify her. “It’s not every day that you discover new things about your partner. It’s… interesting,” he allows.

“You mean that?” He can picture Alana frowning.

“Um.” He means, really, to say _disturbing as fuck_ but he isn’t in the mood for yet another one of Alana’s classic disappointment lectures.

She sighs. “Just talk to him before doing something rash, yeah?”

“I’m never rash,” he begins to protest before Alana cuts him off with a bout of laughter. She really needs to stop wolfing down those tuna sandwiches and Diet Coke. “I’ll talk to him, alright?” he promises half-heartedly. He knows he needs to follow through because Hannibal and Alana are closer than a pair of giggling teenagers. It’s more than a little disconcerting.

“That’s all I ask,” she tells him in a sing-song voice.

There’s a beat of silence and he tries to somehow stop the implications of all the information swirling around his brain. “Why do people want this?” he finally asks. “I mean, how does one decide that they suddenly want to start eating people?”

He knows Alana’s stuck as soon as she takes more than two seconds to come back with a witty reply. “Maybe Willy Wonka is their superhero?” she finally ventures.

Will loves Alana, really. She guest-lectures for him anytime he needs, tolerates his panic attacks and occasionally tries to cure him of his general ‘I-can’t-be-bothered-to-give-a-shit-about-things’-itis. It’s the only reason he decides not to go over and strangle her out of sheer frustration.

*

Turns out, it’s incredibly awkward to ask someone if they like cooking and eating human organs. It doesn’t help that Hannibal is currently in the process of setting the table in front of him.

“Tonight,” Hannibal starts with a flourish, “I’ve prepared sweet and sour-grilled chicken with caramelized onions, potatoes two-ways and an authentic beet-root _purée_ that will nicely counteract the acidity of the chicken jus.”

Will gulps. “Chicken?” he asks carefully. “You’re sure you’ve grilled the legs of only domesticated fowls and not of any other species?”

Hannibal looks at him with a slight amount of confusion, like he’s almost come to anticipate the enthusiastic praise Will normally delivers. “Is everything alright, Will?” he asks with some amount of concern.

Will takes a deep breath. Clearly, there’s no getting around the elephant, well, _his_ elephant, in the room. He can’t possibly be expect to enjoy a meal while wondering if the chicken is glazed with ionic plasma or if the beetroot _purée_ is actually a reduction of human blood with bBalsamic vinegar. Quite frankly, these are the only bodily fluids he can bring himself to think about because the thought of Hannibal ‘experimenting’ with others brings the nausea back to his throat.

“Are you a cannibal?” he blurts out before he can regret the words.

The only way he knows that Hannibal is shocked by the question is because the serving spoon hits the table with a loud _clang_.

Hannibal graciously sits down on the chair opposite him and wipes his mouth delicately. “Will,” he starts, but Will cuts him off.

“I don’t know what’s worse,” he begins, voice oddly calm even though he feels like anything but. “The fact that you hid this from me or that you actually _eat people._ What the _hell,_ Hannibal?”

Hannibal takes a sip of his wine. “It isn’t what you think it is,” he finally says.

And Will laughs. He laughs loudly until it almost borders on hysteria, because does Hannibal really expect him to sit there while he gives him the most clichéd line in the history of Hollywood relationships.

Hannibal looks earnest. Apparently, _yes_ is the right answer.

“Did you _feed_ me human organs as well?” He decides to choose his battles wisely. “Because seriously, Hannibal, that is -- that is just--” he fumbles with his words.

Hannibal raises an eyebrow.

“That is just _uncool_ ,” Will finishes, somewhat lamely. Hannibal raises his other eyebrow.

Hannibal leans across the table to grasp one of Will’s hands in both of his. “Will you give me a chance to explain, Will?” he seems to be actually _asking_ , instead of framing his statement as a question. “It will be much clearer to you once you hear me out.”

Will leans back and rests his head on the chair. All of a sudden, the strain of the whole day washes over him and leaves him feeling incredibly tired and not a little washed out.

“Please tell me you didn’t actually _murder_ innocent people for food,” he says wearily.

 “I know an organic grocery store that specifically caters to high-end cannibals,” Hannibal replies. “They are surprisingly good at meeting all our needs.”

Will turns to look at him. His tone is perfectly neutral without a hint of mockery. It’s impossible for him to figure out whether Hannibal is being sincere or taking the piss.

He decides it’s better not to push, after all.

*

“What’s wrong with Graham?” Jack asks as soon as he gets to their table and takes one look at Will.

He’s squashed in between Bev and Zeller the next night at the corner booth of their regular post-work pub. He’d tried to politely decline their invitations all day but soon after lunch, both Price and Zeller had made it clear that he didn’t really have a choice in the matter.

“Boy troubles,” Zeller replies. Will throws a peanut at him and it lands in his beer. Brian has no qualms about drinking it, nonetheless.

Jack raises an eyebrow. It’s not often that he comes out with the weird little quadrilateral Will’s managed to form with Jack’s team, but Jack is a lot more laid back with alcohol in his system.

“Ah,” he nods wisely. “Hannibal is worried about you, Will.”

Will blinks. “Hannibal told Alana that you haven’t called him since yesterday,” Jack clarifies.

Will wishes he had a pillow to scream into. “Is this law-enforcement or _high school_?” he almost shouts, and cringes at the desperation in his own voice.

“Why hasn’t he called?” Bev ignores his protests.

Will snaps up his head in time to hear Jack elicit an honest-to-god snort. “He found out about Hannibal’s… proclivities,” He tries to be delicate. That bastard.

Beverly gives him a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. “We call him Hannibal the cannibal,” she offers.

“Because we’re all very original with nicknames,” Price adds. Will glares at all of them before going back to stare morosely at his drink.

“I think I have to break up with him,” he reveals after a few beats, although he has no idea why he’s sharing things with people who seem to have no sympathy for his cause.

The four of them straighten a little. “You can’t break up with him,” Jack is the first to recover from his bombshell.

“Yeah,” Zeller echoes. “You can’t break up with him just because he’s a cannibal.”

Will tries very hard not to rip his throat out. “Exactly,” Bev adds her two cents. “It would be like breaking up with a guy just because he doesn’t trim his nose hair,”

Price cocks his head to look at her. “But you _did_ break up with Ryan because he doesn’t trim his nose hair,” he points out. Will controls the urge to bang his head on the table as the conversation gets away from him.

“My point exactly,” she emphasizes. “And I regret it even today.” She gets a faraway look on her face. “If only I had gifted him a nose trimmer,” she muses.

Will feels the last of his sanity slip through his fingers. “Alright, that’s it,” he slams his hands on the table. “I’m out of here.”

He moves to stand up but Price is faster, and he feels his hand being yanked downwards until he’s seated himself again.

“You should talk to him,” he is quick to follow through with advice. “He’s such a catch.”

He frowns. “The guy does _everything_ for you,” Jack elaborates. “He cooks, cleans, does your laundry, feeds your dogs and tucks you in at night. Do you _know_ how many of us would kill for that?”

“He doesn’t do my _laundry_ ,” he hastens to clarify. “He just gets a good discount at his dry cleaners’.”

He feels everyone staring at him in a rare moment of awestruck silence. “ _Man,_ ” Zeller breaks the silence first. “You must be really good in bed.”

Will takes a large gulp of his drink and smiles just a little cheekily as he looks at their faces.

“I have my moments,” he replies vaguely.

*

Will wakes up at some point the next morning to a bright and sunny day, a pounding headache, and a suit-less Hannibal placing aspirin on his bedside table. He tries to sit up, a plan which is quickly thwarted because of the throbbing behind his temple. Instead, he contents himself by groaning softly and falling back on the bed.

Hannibal turns at the noise. “Good morning, Will,” he informs cheerily and Will decides to forego the obvious questions like _how did you enter my house without a key_ or _how did you know to bring me aspirin_.

“Alana told me you had a busy night yesterday,” Hannibal continues and, well, that’s one question answered. Will rubs at his eyes. “Is _everyone_ in high school here?” he groans again.

Hannibal elegantly seats himself at the corner of his bed and pushes a stray hair off his eye. “She talked to our friend Jack and then informed me,” he clarifies, only proving his point further.

Will mutters something incomprehensible into his pillow.

“She was quite surprised at not being invited to your little impromptu party,” Hannibal says as he traces reassuring patterns on Will’s forehead. “So was I, for that matter.”

Will shifts on the bed to give him more space on the bed. “I couldn’t discuss you if you were there,” he has no choice but to point out.

The hand on his forehead stills for the barest of seconds before resuming its tracing. “And may I know what you discussed?” Hannibal’s tone remains unchanged but Will knows that the extra layer of politeness only means that he’s gearing up for a confrontation.

“I told them I’m thinking of breaking up with you,” he lays the truth out in the open.

The hand on his forehead retreats and Will tries to process the vague feeling of emptiness that takes its place. “Because of my food habits,” Hannibal finishes for him. There’s no underlying question in his words.

Will sighs. “Look, this is _insane,_ all right?” he feels something in his chest burst and explode. “I don’t know why no one is bothered by all this but I can’t just overlook the fact that you like eating parts of _people._ I mean, how am I supposed to introduce you to my family? What am I supposed to say? Hey everyone, this is my partner Hannibal, he’s a renowned psychiatrist and in his free time, he likes to eat human beings; so be careful to stay on his good side if you don’t want to get a one-way ticket to one of our date-nights?”

“I would _never_ eat your family, Will,” Hannibal looks quite affronted. “We need your family to be present at our wedding, of course.”

Will stares. He gapes with his mouth open a few times and then continues staring. “ _That_ is what you got from my monologue?” he shouts in frustration.

Hannibal’s shoulders slump. “I don’t want this to be a deal breaker between us,” he says quietly. It’s probably the most heartfelt thing he’s ever heard his partner say over the course of six months.

“This is _insane_ ,” he repeats again, because it _is_ and everyone should appreciate that he’s having a hard time processing it.

Hannibal looks at him appraisingly. “Edgar Allan Poe once said: I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity,” he quotes like a sonuvabitch.

Will throws his pillow at him and takes great pleasure in watching it messing up that perfect head of hair. “Our relationship is not an episode of _Criminal Minds,_ ” he hisses despite the rapidly increasing throbbing in his head.

Hannibal frowns, and Will can almost see him change tracks completely as he decides not to ask any further. Instead, he leans down and presses a kiss to his forehead before pulling his blankets up to his chin.

“You should get some sleep,” Hannibal whispers against his cheek. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”

Will wants to protest, tell him to leave or say something like he’s perfectly capable of nursing a hangover and a bruised ego, thank you very much. As he feels Hannibal stroking his hair, however, all he feels is a wave of fatigue washing over him. His throat burns with the taste of sambuca and he makes a mental note to maim Zeller as much as humanly possible the next time he sees him.

Hannibal’s fingers are long and supple, and his hand feels cool against the burn radiating within him. He pulls his covers up to his chin and tries to fall asleep with the remains of his dignity.

*

“I can’t break up with him,” he informs Beverly over lunch a couple of days later and picks morosely at the footlong sub that she insisted on sharing.

Bev peers at him. “That’s _good,_ right?”

He shrugs. “I can’t actually continue like this and pretend that he isn’t eating people. But I can’t _break_ up with him, Bev. It would be like killing a puppy.”

Bev snorts into her drink. “He’s hardly the puppy in your relationship,” she teases.

“But he _is_ ,” he insists. “He sulked for a whole day because I put ketchup on my spaghetti. Can you possibly imagine his reaction if I break up with him?”

Bev looks like she wants nothing more than to pet him. He shrinks back involuntarily. “Everyone has quirks,” she tries to pacify him. “Maybe you should just try and accept his and move on.”

Will closes his eyes and presses the bridge of his nose. “Don’t _do_ that,” Bev’s voice is sharp and just a little exasperated.

He looks at her. “Do what?”

“Pretend you’re going to get a headache from this conversation. That only works in movies and _you_ ,” she jabs a finger at his cheek, “need to stop being so predictable.”

Will stops any pretense of actually eating and folds his hands on the table. “So let me get this straight. It doesn’t bother _any_ of you that I, your friend, am dating a self-professed cannibal?” He makes sure to enunciate each of his syllables clearly, just to remove every last inch of doubt.

She merely shrugs. “As long as he doesn’t eat me, I’m good,” she waves her half of the sub at him.

Will refrains from stomping his foot in public and Beverly relents. “Okay,” she puts her food down. “Would you have a problem if you found out that he was a vegan?”

He frowns. “Of course not.”

Bev waves her hand about in a _do you see my point_ motion. “Exactly. If he were a vegan, would you tell him he’s causing global warming by eating all our trees? No. Similarly, this is his decision. You don’t need to be a part of it; you just need to let him know that you’re there for him.”

Will closes his eyes and tries to process her alternative perspective. When he reopens his eyes, she’s gone back to eating her sandwich. When she catches him looking, she merely smiles, pointing towards his still- unfinished plate.

He finds that he has nothing to say in reply to that.

*

“Could you take a look at this for me, Will?” Hannibal drops a folder on his table the next evening, just as he’s getting ready to leave. He looks up but Hannibal’s expression is impassive and he merely directs his gaze towards the folder.

Will flips through the pages before throwing it back down. “It’s a brochure for a rehab program,” he repeats dumbly, uselessly, because surely Hannibal _knows_ the contents of the folder before handing it over to him. “For people who want to renounce cannibalism,” he finishes.

The thing, Will thinks, about loving a(-n universally acknowledged) cannibal who takes pleasure in executing, presenting, and _consuming_ portions of other human beings as a part of a three-course meal is that nothing else can really surprise you anymore.

Turns out, he’s wrong. Again. At this rate, he’ll be out of a job by next week.

He knows he’s staring dumbly at Hannibal again, but he can’t help it. There is nothing in Hannibal’s face that suggests that he’s being manipulated; there is no emotion in his face except that of sincerity.

“I will not let this be a deal breaker,” Hannibal tells him, his voice loud in the emptiness of his office. “I’m checking in to the facility tomorrow.”

And here’s the other thing, Will reflects against the loud thrumming of his heart: no one has ever tried to change their world just to make sure that he’s still in there somewhere. He knows, in that moment, that he can never let Hannibal go through with this.

“You know,” he says lightly, instead, “I would’ve never found out anything if I hadn’t Googled you in the first place.”

Hannibal smiles even though a slight frown remains on his forehead. “Why did you Google me?”

Will looks down at his feet. “I wanted you to have the best anniversary,” he mumbles.

He looks up when Hannibal doesn’t say anything for a few second and before he can say anything else, he’s being pulled into a tight hug and Hannibal’s arms are firmly around his torso. He lets himself relax against the slow, steady beat of his heart.

“I would’ve messed it up either way,” he murmurs against Hannibal’s chest and feels a minute vibration as the sound of Hannibal’s light laugh surrounds him.

“I know,” he hears Hannibal say.

He pulls away slightly to make direct eye-contact. “You do?”

Hannibal tilts his head to the side and runs a finger down the line of his neck. “The only thing that matters is that you were willing to do it in the first place,” he replies, and looks just a little uncomfortable at his own admission.

Will feels something in his face split into two as he grins and pulls him down gently to kiss him. He takes a deep breath for a second, reveling in the lightest traces of coffee and mint on Hannibal’s lips as he leans forward again and shifts his body closer to Hannibal. He basks in the warmth radiating from Hannibal’s body because it _has_ been a few days since they’ve done this, and until this moment, he hadn’t realized how much he missed even the sheer proximity of their bodies. Slowly, very slowly and softly, he leans forward until both their lips are parted and they’re breathing just a little too harshly, a little too heavily and he finally, _finally,_ presses his lips to—

*

Will wakes up to a bright and sunny day, a pounding headache and Winston comfortably resting on his stomach.

Despite the building headache, it’s the first time in a long while that he’s slept through the night _and_ woken up without nightmares of any kind. In fact, as far as his dreams go, the last one has been quite frivolous. He isn’t particularly sure why he dreamt of kissing Hannibal, but he’s willing to chalk it up to the bad Chinese, antibiotics and irregular sleep hours. After all, he reflects, it’s not like any of the rest of his dream had any relation to reality.

He gently places Winston to his side and sits up. His phone beeps into the peace and quiet of the morning and he fumbles around his bedside table, swallowing down an aspirin and locating his phone buried under case-files. It’s an alert, reminding him of his appointment with Dr. Lecter in an hour.

Sighing, he presses ‘call’ on his screen and holds up the phone, intending to call and reschedule his hour with Dr. Lecter. As the phone rings, he decides it might be best to inform him about his dream. Best case scenario, they both have a laugh at his expense. Worst case, it could indicate resurfacing reactions about shooting Garrett Jacob Hobbs. Perhaps it could even be a discussion point in therapy tomorrow.

The phone rings a few more times before Dr. Lecter picks up.

Will presses the phone to his ear. “Good morning, Dr. Lecter,” he begins. “You wouldn’t _believe_ what I dreamt of yesterday night.”

*

**Author's Note:**

> ohh, this. yeah, so this is inspired in parts by insomnia, too much caffeine and a desire to write something completely opposite to the emotional turmoil that was the season finale.  
> also, just for the record, i do not endorse or support cannibalism. this is merely fanfiction.


End file.
